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Computer virus hits New Zealand ambulances

Ambulance centers in New Zealand may be need better antivirus software after being hit with viruses last week, according to news reports. The virus infection affected paging and radio systems for ambulance companies.

Alan Goudge, communications center operation manager for Wellington, Auckland and Christchurch, had to manually back up systems after the viruses hit.

"To our knowledge at this time, no patients were adversely affected as a result of the system being impacted by the virus but the ambulance communications centers together with the ambulance service providers are currently undertaking investigations into a number of responses to incidents to determine if there were any delays," Goudge said, according to The Dominion Post.

Goudge said antivrius software protected the systems from further damage, according to the Waikato Times, but backup systems needed to take over and workloads had to be managed manually after the viruses hit. He said the cause of the virus is being investigated, and it is still unclear how the viruses entered the ambulance centers' system.